he is just away
by airbefore
Summary: The package comes on a Tuesday, two weeks before what would have been their first anniversary. (An AU take on the first two eps of S7)


**Disclaimer:** All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

**AN: **An AU take on the first two eps of season 7. Castle isn't found. The tapes are.

* * *

_I cannot say, and I will not say_

_That he is dead. He is just away._

_~ James Whitcomb Riley_

The package comes on a Tuesday, two weeks before what would have been their first anniversary.

A cream colored envelope, postmarked from Canada, so innocuous that she almost dismisses it as nothing more than creative junk mail. It's not until she sees her name - printed in blocky, slanted script - that her heart stutters to a stop. After years of scribbled ideas on the edges of her notebooks and lewd post-it notes left stuck to her bathroom mirror or steering wheel and the collection of letters ranging from racy to romantic she has collected in a box in the top drawer of her nightstand, she'd recognized his handwriting anywhere. Even without the accompaniment of his name in upper left corner, above the blank space where a return address should have been.

Part of her wonders if she should be upset that he sent the envelope to her apartment and not the loft. But she's not. He knows her. Knows her better than anyone else ever has or will. He knows that she would retreat here, would need this space. That she wouldn't be able to live in his home without him. Sleeping in their bed, surrounded by his scent and his possessions and his family, it had been too much. She'd left a month after the wedding. If he never came back, never called the loft home again, neither could she.

She watches his message to her for the first time in the conference room at the Twelfth with his sobbing daughter and sniffling mother to her left, stone faced FBI agents on her right. Her partners stand sentinel behind them, offering silent support and watching as they cycle through all three memory cards. As they bear witness to this, his final words. His last acts of love.

He tells his mother that he loves her. That she is everything he ever wanted or needed in a parent. That he's sorry for leaving and that it wasn't his choice. He asks her to look after his daughter, to make sure that she's okay.

He tells his daughter that she is the best thing that ever happened to him, the greatest accomplishment of his life. Tells her that he will never stop loving her, that he never wanted to leave her. Says that he wants her to have an amazing life, to carry on without him knowing that he will always be there with her.

Hers is the hardest to watch. For all of them.

Because hers is the one where he says what he'd so carefully avoided in the other two messages. That if she is seeing it, he's probably dead.

Her body rebels against the words. Bile creeps up her throat, burning an esophagus already raw from seven months of sleeping pills chased with whiskey, and her hearing fades out, the sound of the ocean rushing in to fill void. His mouth continues to move on the screen, face sunburnt and slick with sweat, and she wills herself back, desperate to hear the voice that has whispered to her in her dreams for so long.

_I've always loved you. Always._

They aren't allowed to keep the cards.

She'd known, logically, that they wouldn't be able to. That even though the FBI had written his case off as cold months before, the cards were still evidence and would be logged and scrubbed, picked apart for even the tiniest clue that might lead them to answers. To his body. But when the tech collects them, carelessly tossing the little plastic memory cards into evidence bags, the dam inside her chest bursts, releasing the torrent of rage she's spent eleven and a half months repressing. It takes three uniforms to pull her off the scrawny FBI agent, to unwrap her knees from around his waist and pry her hands from his long, thin neck.

The captain visits two weeks into her mandatory leave, the day after the anniversary of when the day of her dreams suddenly became a nightmare. Wearing jeans and a tshirt, she shows up at the cabin in the woods, her boots clomping heavily on the sagging old porch. Mouth pursed in a tense line, the captain stares down at where she lays collapsed on the kitchen floor, unwashed and strung out, surrounded by empty bottles and his books. Their books.

Strong hands hook under her arms and heft, drag her into the shower fully clothed. She chokes and sputters, puts up a half-hearted fight before sagging against the wall and letting the water rush down over her. The captain cups her chin, wiping away the weeks' worth of grime and tears staining her skin as the spray soaks them both. Her sobs echo in the tiny bathroom, bouncing off the tiles and reverberating down to her bones.

She checks into rehab two days later, her dad at her side.

Five months sober, she goes back to work. His chair still sits beside her desk, the brown fabric dull and faded in the early morning light. Her hands don't tremble when she reaches for it, closing her fingers over the rounded edge of the back and lifting. The empty space surprises her, gives her pause for at least week, but eventually she gets used to it. Learns to look past it.

The call comes six months after the envelope. With no new evidence or leads, the FBI informs her that the time has come to scale back their investigation. The case will remain open officially but their efforts would be better served elsewhere. She nods her agreement to the phone and thanks them for all their work before going to the bathroom to dry heave. After a meeting and an hour spent on the phone with her sponsor that night, she cries herself to sleep with a copy of Raging Heat clutched to her chest.

A package arrives a week later, delivered to the precinct and brought to her desk by a scared looking uniform. Just a thin manila envelope, containing nothing more than three memory cards and a single slip of paper.

_I'm sorry I couldn't get these to you sooner. _

_Jordan_

Somehow, she makes it home. She should have gone to the loft, should have taken the others their cards as well, but she's selfish. Needy. Always has been when it comes to him. She has to see him again. Hear his voice. She'd read the transcript of the tape, memorized it long ago but she needs to hear it. Hear him say that he hadn't wanted to leave her. That he loved her.

Body shaking with anticipation, she fumbles the memory card into the correct slot on her laptop and opens the file. Her heart lurches when she sees him, tears instantly pooling in the corners of her eyes. Her left hand moves to her chest as she watches, digging under the neck of her sweater for the chain of her necklace. It's heavier now, weighed down with the thick band she was supposed to slip over his knuckle that day.

She hits the repeat button on the video player and the clip starts over.

Climbing up onto the bed, she clutches his ring in her hand and curls her body around the computer, listening. Her eyes close and she sighs, a slight warmth unfurling inside her chest for the first time in eighteen months. If she concentrates hard enough, if she breathes just right and doesn't move too much, she can almost trick herself into believing it. Feeling it. The heat of his body curled up behind her, the weight of an arm wrapping tightly around her waist, the feather light press of his lips to that soft spot just behind her ear that he knew - knows - drives her crazy as he whispers to her.

_I've always loved you. _

_Always._

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_Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always appreciated. _


End file.
